Tris completes her test and the hallucination ends, allowing a small group of people to come in and congratulate her.  Then Eric says that before she can go to the ‘welcome banquet,’ she has to be injected with a tracking device.

I know I’m supposed to be wondering about the ominous tracking device, but instead all I’m wondering is about her insta-acceptance.  Weren’t they told that only half of them would actually get in?  Have they already done up the rankings since Tris was last, so they know she made the cut?  Did they just assume from the get-go that she’d make it no matter what, since she was so far ahead?  Why isn’t there a grace period at the end of the test so they can calculate the scores and then announce who made it and who didn’t?  Or is this just all part of ominous-ness, and they just really want a tracking device in Tris?

Oh, they’re going to announce her rank at the banquet.  …so, do they want to track the 6 kids that are going to be kicked out as well?  Did not everyone get a device?  COME ON, BOOK, I’M SO CONFUSED.

So, Tris only had seven fears, which the book tells me is awesome.  She comes out to the room with the audience and everyone cheers for her.  Because she’s that frikkin special. 

Tobias invites her to stay with him for the two hours until the banquet.

My stomach twists.

“What is it?” he asks.

I don’t want to go back to the dormitory, and I don’t want to be afraid of him.

This is literally the first time she’s reacted like this, and it happened after the hallucination test.  It’s like this wasn’t even a ‘fear’ until the test put it there, which is backwards from how we’re told it’s supposed to work. 

But she doesn’t want to be afraid, so she goes to his room with him, all the time talking about how she’s so scared and REALLY, WHAT IS GOING ON?  YOU’VE MADE OUT WITH HIM IN HIS ROOM BEFORE.  YOU GOT ON A SPEEDING TRAIN AND MADE OUT WITH HIM.  YOU WERE PISSED OFF THAT HE DIDN’T MAKE OUT WITH YOU IN PUBLIC.  THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A TIME WERE AFRAID BEFORE, SO WHY NOW?  She’s been confused.  She’s been all “oh, my, why am I so drawn to him?”  But she’s never been afraid.

Ah, here we go.  As they keep talking about why she’s acting so skittish, we discover she’s not afraid of intimacy.  She’s nervous about having sex.    It’s the pretty standard “but I’m a virgin and he’s not, what if I do something wrong” sort of talk.

…I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse.  I mean, isn’t that kind of fear…normal?  Isn’t that something everyone faces when about to have sex for the first time?  Then why the fuck was it in Tris’s fear test?  Is it in everyone’s fear test?  I mean, the book is taking something that’s pretty standard and presenting it as some deep-seated psychological fear.

“Hey, Teenage Girl Reader!  Are you nervous about the possibility of having sex with your boyfriend for the first time?  Well that means there’s something wrong with you!  You’re secretly afraid of intimacy!  It is totally not normal to have that fear, and you should be ashamed of yourself for not ‘really’ loving him.  Go out and have sex right now to fix this.”

Furthermore, where is all this coming from?  They’ve had two make-out sessions and zero serious conversations about their relationship, or even an agreement on whether or not they have a relationship.  We’re at the “teehee, he likes me” stage, not even the dating stage.  She can still have sex on the brain, that’s fine.  He’s probably the first guy she ever got the tinglies for, and the test did put the subject matter on her mind.  But the book takes this all so seriously, while I’m sitting around going OMG, TALK TO EACH OTHER, YOU’VE NEVER HAD A SERIOUS CONVERSATION, STOP JUMPING RIGHT TO THE ANGST, GAWD.  Or, if you must act like teenagers, maybe just have a moment of going “Oh, jee, I jumped the gun on that one, maybe we should have an actual conversation at some point.”

They are teenagers.  I get it.  They’re going to fuck up.  And it’s fine to show teenaged characters fucking up.  But maybe the teenaged readers need to see characters that overcome their missteps, not that treat every teenaged thing they do as Of Grave Importance. 

Instead, Tobias tells Tris that he’s a virgin, too, and that…somehow fixes everything?  Then they kiss a lot and show off tattoos.  Really, the message I’m getting from all this is “if you’re nervous about having sex with your boyfriend, don’t talk to him about it; just kiss him until you get horny.  That will make it all better.”

Tobias takes his shirt off in the tattoo-looking-at process.

he grabs the hem of his T-shirt. In one swift motion, he pulls it over his head.

A patch of Dauntless flames covers his right side, but other than that, his chest is unmarked. He averts his eyes.

“What is it?” I ask, frowning. He looks…uncomfortable.

“I don’t invite many people to look at me,” he says. “Any people, actually.”

“I can’t imagine why,” I say softly. “I mean, look at you.”

Hey.  Hey, Tris.  Remember us?  Your readers?  WE CAN’T FUCKING SEE HIM.  If all you tell me is that he’s got one tattoo and nothing else, what have I got to go on?

You know, it’s pretty normal for very strong guys to be a bit on the heavy side.  Weight training won’t get you looking ripped, that’s more cardio.  So I’m going to proceed with imaging Tobais as looking kind of doughy.  And he lives underground, so he’s going to be a pale kind of doughy.  And a sad little spattering of hair, like he hasn’t quite hit puberty.

Because I can. 

On his back, he’s got the symbols for all five factions, and he says exactly what I’ve been saying all along.  It’s not right to put down the values of the other factions, and we should strive to be brave, smart, kind, etc all at the same time.

That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t address the issue of why the fuck everyone doesn’t think like this.  Tobias isn’t really breaking a mold here; he’s just being normal while everyone around him is lead-paint-eating levels of stupid.

And another point.  Both Tobias and Tris have tattoos of the Abnegation symbol.  Tobias has all five symbols.  They keep them hidden so no one else can see them, because apparently just going to the wrong side of town can get you labeled a traitor.  No telling what a tattoo would make people think.  Fine.  BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO GAVE YOU THE TATTOOS.

THEY KNOW YOU HAVE THEM.

THEY CAN TELL THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE.

THESE TATTOOS AREN’T SECRETS, YOU MORONS.

They kiss more and decide that someday they’ll have sex, just not right now. 

No, I really can’t get over this.  I refuse to let go of it.  It’s not being presented as a normal fear, but as something that’s on par with having to shoot your own family.  But it gets fixed with kissing and…not even a conversation.  They sort of brush over the subject without really saying anything about it.  It’s just such a mess.  Anyone who does have a serious fear of intimacy is basically getting the message that they just need to force the issue, and anyone who has just normal nerves is getting the message that their nerves are somehow wrong and need to be fixed.

I brush over Abnegation’s symbol with my fingertips. “We have to warn them, you know. Soon.”

…okay, so go do it.  Seriously, you’ve known about this ever since Tobias told you.  (Days?  A day, at least.)  And he’s known about it for god knows how long.  Why are you not immediately running home to tell your parents, who you supposedly love so much?  Why are you not doing something?  Why are you just sitting around, kissing, and saying ‘eh, we’ll do that later’?

It’s bad enough that they’re putting it off, but we don’t even get a reason for putting it off.  Not even a bad one.

Instead they go to a fucking banquet.  Tris goes to chat with her friends about the test and what jobs they want if they get to pick. 

War?  Hello?  Looming war?  Going to kill people?  Going to harm those you love?

HEY, REMEMBER ABOUT HOW BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR FAMILY’S DEATH WAS ONE OF YOUR BIG FEARS?

YOU THINK MAYBE THIS IS SORT OF RELATED TO THAT?

It’s really incredible.  She’s supposed to be facing and overcoming her fears, but she can only do that in the hallucination, where she has magic powers to control the weather (sorta).  Back in the real world with real consequences, and she’s like “psh, my family in danger?  Fuck that, we’ve got cake.”

I don’t know, maybe she doesn’t give a damn because her heart rate is too low or something.

Eric gets up and gives a speech, all while Tris silently fumes about how he’s really Erudite, even though we have yet to see him do anything smart.

…Um, this whole thing is kind of confusing.  Is he ‘really’ Erudite because he was a transfer, and he switched factions as some sort of plan to become a mole?  Well, okay, but he still had to pass Dauntless training in that case.  And supposedly you can’t pass the training if you aren’t actually brave.  And he’d have to do really well at it to get the high-ranking job he has now. 

So…is Eric Divergent, too?

They show the rankings, and Tris got first place.  No surprise there.  Molly and Drew didn’t make the ten-person cut, so they’re off to be factionless.  Tris has a moment of petty glee, because apparently being ugly and lying to reporters is worthy of menial labor, crushing poverty, horrifying living conditions, ostracization, and a high chance of death.

Yeah.  Remember how you went on and on about how sad it is to be factionless, how it’s the worst thing ever, how terrible their lives are?  You can’t later throw that out as a punishment like it’s somehow equal to their terrible crimes of…fuck it, nothing is worth that.  I don’t care how terrible they are.  You shouldn’t hurt people and call it justice.  Something needs to be done about criminals, yes, and Molly and Drew both did bad things that need to be punished.  But this still isn’t justice.  This isn’t the way to fix criminal behavior.  This is petty and cruel revenge.  This is just lashing out and hurting people because you don’t like what they did.

You shouldn’t answer pain with more pain.  Two wrongs don’t make a right.  Crime is not combated by rounding up all the criminals and treating them like shit.  If that were the case, our prisons wouldn’t be overflowing right now.

I know that the Dauntless aren’t really sending them away for being bad people, because if that were the case then Peter would be with them.  However, the meta-message we’re getting here says that it’s justice.  If not intentional justice, then at least poetic justice.  It’s saying that their fate ultimately is okay because it fits their crime.  And that whole brand of thinking is what leads us down a very dark path.

Furthermore, what is this saying about the rest of the factionless?  If Tris thinks it’s okay for Drew and Molly to join them because those two are bad, then does she think that the rest of the factionless are equally terrible people?  The boy who didn’t make it on the train that first day, what about him?  What immoral thing did he do to deserve his fate?

Tris has no fucks to give about that, and she celebrates by kissing Tobias in front of everyone instead.  Then she rather spontaneously realizes that their ‘tracking devices’ are really mind control devices, and that’s how the Erudite will be controlling the Dauntless to get them to fight.

Dude, if they have mind control devices, why not just stick them in the Abnegation guys and cut out the middle man?